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NickAdams
04-28-2008, 02:01 PM
I can't remember how I came across this author, but I did. I found an excerpt from How I Wrote Certain of My Books and became intrigued:

"I chose two similar words. For example billiards and pilliards (looter). Then I added to it words similar but taken in two different directions, and I obtained two almost identical sentences thus. The two sentences found, it was a question of writing a tale which can start with the first and finish by the second. Amplifying the process then, I sought new words reporting itself to the word billiards, always to take them in a different direction than that which was presented first of all, and that provided me each time a creation moreover. The process evolved/moved and I was led to take an unspecified sentence, of which I drew from the images by dislocating it, a little as if it had been a question of extracting some from the drawings of rebus." For example, Les lettres du blanc sur les bandes du vieux billard/The white letters on the cushions of the old billiard table… must somehow reach the phrase, …les lettres du blanc sur les bandes du vieux pillard/letters [written by] a white man about the hordes of the old plunderer.
What can you tell me about him?

Drkshadow03
04-28-2008, 02:42 PM
Foucault wrote a book about him that you can find here (http://books.google.com/books?id=vaFyCFmSdh4C&dq=raymound+roussel&pg=PP1&ots=V-n_i6nydE&sig=79OwZBheu2LItKRSBsZuihUbmaA&hl=en&prev=http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=Raymound+Roussel&sa=X&oi=print&ct=title&cad=one-book-with-thumbnail). (whoops! It looks like a Spanish translation of the book, but I'm pretty sure there are English translations available either through purchase or your friendly neighborhood library)

You could always read his wikipedia page and look at the References to find books on him here (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raymond_Roussel) and learn a little bit about his works.

You could also always read his own account of his own works by purchasing it here (http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/1878972146).

NickAdams
04-29-2008, 10:51 AM
Thanks, but I was hoping to get a first-hand account. I want to know what I should expect or what his style is like. I will be checking a few bookstores today and hopefully I can find one of his books.